The present invention relates in general to physical device management and in particular to an apparatus for enabling a network-level and protocol-neutral communication with a physical device.
Networked intelligent devices are virtually everywhere today, embedded into building management systems, medical devices, home thermostats, commercial chillers, HVAC systems, and automobiles to name a few. Embedded software developers have long been aware of the engineering challenges and high costs associated with adding management capabilities to devices. A significant problem is that the technologies available in the marketplace today often are limited to a specific manufacturers' products or a specific industry, and are only appropriate for certain customer requirements. As a result, the absence of a truly flexible, standards-based and cost-effective remote management solution has encumbered device manufacturers and their consumers from realizing the benefits of the connectivity they desire.
For example, the controls industry has traditionally performed the monitoring and control functions that manage automated devices within large enterprises. Their technology, however, is severely limited and very costly to install and maintain. Using proprietary protocols and cumbersome architecture, they are unable to effectively access valuable data from the disparate and ever-growing variety of devices available today. As more devices come to market, enterprises demand new solutions to mine the intelligence of these resources and to integrate them into their increasingly complex networks. The problem facing enterprises, service providers and manufacturers alike is how to get disparate intelligent devices to speak the same language and communicate what they know throughout the enterprise.
There is, therefore, a need to efficiently establish a non-proprietary or generic communication, in an easily configurable manner, between a software-based monitoring client and a device that does not suffer from the shortcomings of existing facilities control and management systems.